Fear of the Unknown
by dianaameade2
Summary: Four childhood friends in the sleepy town of Alicante happen upon a twenty-year-old mystery and are thrown into a world of murders, mysteries, and lost treasure. While trying to finish the search their parents started so many years ago, they also try and uncover the secrets their parents are keeping from them... and the truth about why members of the Circle seem to die so young...
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One:**

It was first period on a Friday, and instead of being in class Jace Herondale was sat alone in the library, reading a tattered copy of some dusty period novel whilst waiting for the time to tick by. Although Alicante High School was one of the dullest places, in the dullest of New England towns (namesake Alicante), it was also the one place that Jace could slip away mostly unnoticed. Nothing could disturb him whilst everyone else was in class, he was away from prying eyes and the small-town gossip. He could absorb himself in other worlds, not bothering to acknowledge the passing of time; in fact, Jace only looked up from his book when two of his best friends, Clary and Isabelle, slumped down beside him, both equally frustrated looking, both in their gym uniforms. He rolled his eyes, licking his thumb to turn the page.

"Don't you two have gym right about now?" He asked, pretending to read. He felt Clary kick him from under the library table and looked up in indignation, catching her narrowed eyes. Isabelle smirked at him, applying lip gloss. Even sweaty from running half a mile and in the lurid green gym shorts and polo, Isabelle looked like a model. She had long, dark hair, equally chocolate eyes, and skin that was perpetually tan despite the sleepy sea-side town gloom. If Jace hadn't been friends with her since they were practically babies, and her foster brother since he was eleven, he would definitely have a crush on her. Jace narrowed his eyes back at Clary, the yin to Isabelle's yang.

"Don't get mouthy, Jacey, I can always go and tell Mr Blackthorne where you are when you should be in Biology."

"Yeah, yeah, like he doesn't know." Jace said, putting his book down. "How _did _you get out of gym?" He asked, and Clary grinned. He couldn't help but feel his lips turn up at that smile, her bright green eyes smiling too.

"Isabelle just told the coach that we were both on our period." She said, and Jace made a face "Hey! It could have been the truth! Besides you live with her, don't act so weird." Clary said, pulling his book toward her. The library was currently empty around them; classes were on, and the librarian usually snuck off to smoke during lessons. The quiet was nice.

"Where's Si?" Isabelle asked, checking her hair in a small mirror. "Usually he's with you when you bunk off."

Jace shrugged, pulling his phone from his bag.

"He said he would meet me here—and, speak of the devil."

The three of them all looked toward the door where Simon, the fourth member of their gang, was currently walking slowly into the library, dragging his hands along the shelves and smiling to himself. Clary stifled her giggles, and Isabelle groaned.

"Oh, look what the cat dragged in, Stoner McStoneface." Isabelle said, rolling her eyes. Clary and Jace shared a look, both trying not to laugh, choking at the disgusted look on Isabelle's face as Simon fell into a seat beside her and pressed a wet kiss to her cheek. She pushed him away, wiping at her cheek. "Ew, gross- you _stink._" She said, and Simon grinned.

"Hey, you're the one that asked where he was." Jace said, leaning an elbow on the table, and Clary looked to Isabelle.

"True, Iz."

Isabelle scoffed.

"I just wanted to know if he was in class, I don't want Shaggy over here making me smell of skunk." She muttered, and Simon just kept smiling.

"You know you love me." He said, and Isabelle's grimace turned to a scowl.

"You are such an idiot, god, what if you get caught smoking _again _and your mom sends you away? Who will give us a ride to school then?" Isabelle asked, and Jace interjected.

"To be fair, I do the driving." He said, and Isabelle turned her scowl to him.

"Yeah, only because Si is always _high, _it's his van."

"Just saying." Jace shrugged, and Clary kicked him under the desk.

"Look, I won't get caught- why do you think I smoke at school?" Simon replied, and Isabelle shot him a deathly look.

"Lewis, I have never in my goddamn life known anyone as dumb as you, I swear…"

Clary and Jace zoned out as the two began to bicker, reaching across the desk to thumb wrestle. Clary paid close attention, brows furrowed as they tried to ignore their friends' argument.

"How's the paper going?" Jace said quietly, and Clary grinned, capturing his thumb under hers.

"Mr Blackthorne won't let me actually start a paper unless I clear out the old _Gazette _room." Clary said, scowling as Jace caught her thumb, holding it down. "And you _know _that I'm not clearing that dust-hole out alone."

Jace frowned.

"Why don't you just ask us to help?" He said, and Clary snorted.

"Um, because Mr and Mrs Smith can't stop arguing for more than three seconds." Clary said, and they shared a furtive glance at Isabelle and Simon, still arguing over nothing. Jace grinned.

"Well, I'll help." He said, finally gripping down on her thumb and smiling triumphantly. "Gotcha!" He said, and Clary rolled her eyes.

"You cheated." She said.

"Did not." He replied, standing up and packing his book into his bag.

"Did too, your thumb is way bigger than mine." Clary said, watching him hitch his bag over his shoulder. "Hey, where the hell are you going?" She asked, and Jace grinned.

"To empty out the Gazette room." Jace said, and Clary gave him a confused look.

"Now?" She asked, and Jace rolled his eyes.

"No, Clare, next week. Yes, now! C'mon."

Clary scrambled up from her chair, pulling at her gym shorts and tugging her ponytail tighter. Isabelle finally pulled her attention away from Simon.

"Well maybe if you hadn't left me alone with Seelie Bitchface then—hey where are we going?" Isabelle and Simon both got up too, seeing Jace and Clary leave; the dynamic of their group was simple. They might not always be on the same page, but they would be arguing together. They had all been friends for so long, and the sleepy town of Alicante was so judgemental, that it was kind of impossible to ignore the gravitational pull around them all, binding them together.

"We're going to empty out the old newspaper room." Clary said, following Jace out the door. Isabelle frowned as she followed her friends, Simon trailing along behind her.

"Now?" She asked, and Jace tried not to roll his eyes again.

"Yes, now." Clary said, hoisting up her backpack. "You got something better to do?"

"I'm hungry." Simon said, loping forward to throw an arm around Clary's shoulder, an action that was met with a laugh.

"Yeah, duh. When are you not hungry?" Isabelle asked, flicking her hair and walking beside Clary with purposeful strides. Clary tried not to laugh at her best friends and watched Jace march them toward the back building. The old newspaper room may as well have been a store cupboard, the red paint on the door peeling, the door stuck shut. Clary chucked her bag to the ground when the reached the door, and pushed hard at the door, gripping the handle.

"Crap, it's locked." She said, and Jace bumped her out the way.

"Nothing in this place is locked." He said and shook the rusted handle. He then pulled the door, which swung open evenly. He shot a look at Clary. "It's a pull door, dickhead." He said to her, and Clary elbowed him hard, pushing him out of her way to get into the room, immediately coughing. She held up a hand to her mouth as Isabelle stepped in next to her, shining her phone torch into the room.

"It is gross in here." Isabelle said, wafting her hand in front of her face to clear the dust. The room was only small, and on all four walls there were desks covered in boxes, each one filled with years-worth of old newspapers and research. There was a dim glow in the room, a window on the back wall shuttered by a set of mouldy blinds, and Clary knew that out of that window was just the rocky beach that was adjacent to their school. There were a few archaic computers, as well as a microfiche reader, and Clary turned to look at Jace who was flicking at some papers, clapping his hands. The door swung shut, shocking them all, and Clary frowned.

"It's really gross. How long has this all just been sat here?"

Jace tapped at a keyboard, blowing at the dust on the top of the computer.

"Long enough for Windows 98 to look space age." He said, looking around the room. "You sure you want to bother?" He asked, and Clary huffed.

"Well, I need something _good _for my post college transcript, and even if no one reads the thing, how cool would it be if we said we ran a school newspaper?"

"We?" Simon said, indignant, and Clary rolled her eyes.

"Well you don't expect me to do this alone, do you?" She replied. Isabelle shook her head.

"Uh, yeah, Cee. This place is dank."

"Hey guys—"

They were interrupted by Jace, who was holding an old photo frame, dusting off the picture.

"What?" Clary asked, looking to Jace. He handed her the photograph.

The picture was of a group of six smiling teenagers, their faces forever frozen in youthful laughter, three guys, three girls, their arms all tangled together in an embrace as they smiled at the camera. The image was an old colour photo, the ink slightly smudged by time, but Clary would recognise her mother's face anywhere- and Isabelle's.

"Hey…" She whispered. "No way…" She took a deep breath, and then read aloud to Simon and Isabelle the handwritten scrawl on the back, clutching the photo. "Jocie Fairchild, Luke Garroway, Val Morgenstern, Maryse Trueblood, Hodge Starkweather, Linnie Montclaire, and Stephen Herondale, founding members of the Circle, picture taken Spring 1996 by the noble Hodge."

Jace smiled slightly, and Clary looked up in amazement.

"Your Mom was called Linnie, right?" She asked, and Jace rubbed a hand on the back of his neck.

"Yeah, Celine…"

His mother had died during childbirth, his father Stephen passing away eleven years later in a tragic car crash. Stephen and Robert Lightwood had been close, and now it was clear that Jace's parents and Isabelle's mother had also been friends, and it made a whole lot of sense why Jace had been taken into the Lightwood's care. Celine and Stephen had been together since they were fifteen, and Clary carefully assessed their faces. Stephen looked so like Jace, taller than her own father, Luke, but also lanky. He had an easy smile, and Celine laughed up at him, her gaze one clearly of love. Clary smiled.

"Let me see that." Isabelle said, taking the photograph. "Oh my god… my Mom was _goth_." She said in horror, and Clary laughed, snatching it back.

"Leave her… look, I didn't even know my Mom and Dad had been friends at school… they always made out that I was an accident after college, that's why they only got married last year…" She said, looking down at the face of Jocelyn Fairchild, now Garroway, and her father, his salt and pepper hair as she knew it instead a scruffy brown mess. She grinned. "This is so cool!"

Simon perched himself on one of the desks and flicked his eyes over the photo; Simon was a rarity in their small town; where all of their parents had been to school here, grown up friends, coupled up with their high school sweethearts and settled into the same streets they had always lived on, Simon's parents had moved to Alicante when Simon was five, making him the only new child ever to the neighbourhood. Therefore, he wasn't quite as interested in the blast from the past.

"Who's Val, what a weird name… and Hodge?" Isabelle asked, and Clary shrugged.

"Dunno, they must've actually got out of this goddamn town." Isabelle said, pulling out her lip gloss yet again and reapplying it. Jace snorted.

"As if anyone ever gets out of Alicante." He said, rolling his eyes. Clary could tell how wistful Jace was currently feeling; he didn't have a lot from his parents and seeing this seemingly sentimental fragment of their past would have been a welcome offering. Clary spotted an old newspaper and pulled it from a pile of junk, reading the back of the edition.

"Hey- the club, they wrote the newspaper back in the day…How weird is it that all our parents were in this club, 'The Circle' or whatever, and we never knew? Did your Mom ever mention it, Iz?" Clary asked, enamoured by the photograph. Isabelle shrugged.

"This is the first I'm hearing of it- my parents don't really talk a lot about high school." Isabelle said. "I wonder why your parents don't hang around with mine, if they were so chummy back then?" Isabelle asked, and Clary opened her mouth to offer an answer when Simon finally spoke up.

"I think I know…" He said, holding up an old copy of the Gazette. On the front, splattered across the page was a picture of a young guy, skinny and grinning, with his arm wrapped around another guy's shoulder. Next to it was the same photo, blown up to only show the face of the scrawny teen. Isabelle sucked in a breath at the headline.

"Hodge Starkweather finally found." She read, and Clary gasped. Isabelle looked up. "Dead."

"Shit." Jace said, running a hand through his hair. "That's… I mean… I mean, look at him- he looks so young."

"He was our age." Said Simon, taking back the paper. "No one knows what happened to him. He was missing for a week… and then his body turned up."

"I guess that's why our parents don't talk much." Clary whispered, slipping her fingers through Jace's. "They all knew this Hodge guy… god, that really is sad." Clary whispered, and Jace squeezed her hand.

"Oh god."

They all looked to Isabelle, who had been flicking through her phone. She looked up, frowning.

"I googled the name… I wanted to know this other guy… Val Morgenstern… turns out he's dead too." Clary furrowed her brows, and Jace let out a low whistle. "He died five years later… weird, the year we were all born… I guess that's why my Mom doesn't like me birthday," She joked, then pursed her lips. "Two of their friends dead, and they only just finished college."

"I guess that really explains it. First Hodge, then this Val… then my parents." Jace said, and this time Clary squeezed his hand. "They must think they're cursed."

"Well, I don't know much about curses." Simon interjected, holding another piece of paper. "But I know there's usually treasure."

They all looked at him like he had gone mad, especially as he unravelled the paper to reveal an old map of their town, a series of 'x' marks along the architecture of their small town.

"X marks the spot." Simon said, and Isabelle scoffed.

"That's not funny, Si, it's probably just some dumb game." She said.

"Fair." Simon said, putting the paper back into the box he had found it in. "It could just be a game." He pulled out another object, and Simon could almost feel their jaws hitting the floor as he pulled out an ornate box, the thing glowing under Isabelle's torchlight, the hundreds of jagged gems sparkling like eyes at them. "But then again, this does seem a hell of a lot like treasure."

Clary blanched, looking to Jace, who in turn looked to Isabelle.

"Holy… Is that real?" Isabelle asked, reaching for the box, and Simon handed it off to her with a bleak look.

"I'm no Harry Winston, but I'm pretty sure they're real… its so heavy."

Clary looked at the box, fascinated by the iridescent glow being thrown by the multicoloured gems. Isabelle ran her hands over it's surface, feeling each individual gem.

"What the hell is this even doing in here?" She whispered, then putting it down on the desk.

"What's inside?" Clary asked, and Isabelle frowned.

"What makes you think there's anything inside it?" Isabelle said, and Clary just shrugged, feeling an odd tug in the centre of her chest. She felt compelled to open it, to see what was inside, what secrets it was holding. She reached forward and gripped the box, slipping her fingertips under the lip of the lid and pulling gently. The box popped open with a slight grind, and Clary felt the lid come lose. She made a noise of disappointment.

"It's just a bit of paper." She said, and Jace peered over her shoulder. The box was lined with a mottled gold metal, a single leaf of paper nestled inside.

"Did you expect inexhaustible riches?" Jace teased, watching Clary pick up the paper. Clary frowned.

"Shut up, Dickens. I just thought… I mean, the words don't even make any sense!" Clary exclaimed, reading the paper. "It's gibberish."

"No." Isabelle said, rifling through her bag. "It's mirror writing."

Clary furrowed her eyebrows, looking at the seemingly incomprehensible scrawl carefully. Isabelle moved her out of the way and placed her compact mirror next to the sheet, reading aloud.

"Time wears thin.

My fortune will remain as I will, buried, if you cannot finish my task.

To find my key, you must dig where no man may enter. Luck may find you swiftly.

Alicante is ours no more.

R.A."

Isabelle finished reading, snapping her compact shut again. Simon scratched his head.

"Uh… did anyone else not get a word of that?" He said, and Isabelle directed a sharp gaze at him, but before she could reprimand him, Jace spoke.

"It means." He said, carefully putting the paper back in the box. "That you were right, Si."

Isabelle felt like, if she had been drinking anything, she would be spitting it out right about then. She turned to Jace.

"Are you both on bath salts? Clearly this is just some Halloween joke from back when the only thing on TV were reruns of Charlie's Angels and Beverly Hills 90210, pre Daniel Cosgrove." Isabelle said, putting the lid back on the box. "No offense Clary, its kind of cool that our parents were all part of this club-slash-newspaper-slash-treasure hunting club, but this place is super weird. And now Jace is convinced that_ Simon, _of all people, is right."

Jace made a face and pulled one of the chairs from its desk, ignoring the dust and taking a seat. He leant back casually, crossing his ankles, and let out a sigh.

"Isabelle… I urge you to one day pick up a book. Any, really, will do. But for all of our sake please give it a go—" He was cut off as Isabelle sent a dusty newspaper flying at his head, and he ducked.

"Will you quit being a dick and just explain? Geeze, no need to get personal." Isabelle replied, hand on hip, and Clary laughed at Jace's grin. Simon too had settled himself on a desk chair, and Isabelle instead leant against a desk, not willing to get dust on her clothes, even if it was just her gym gear.

"Yeah, spill Jace? Tell me about the treasure." Clary said, sitting on the desk beside him, swinging her legs. Jace glanced at her, then shrugged.

"I mean… I am kind of joking, it's just a myth," He began, but continued when Isabelle scowled. "Look, I spend a lot of time in the library, and no matter how shitty it is it has a _hell _of a lot of old Alicante records. And there are all these books about the original settlers, the Spanish that came over from the original Alicante in the 1500's."

Clary nodded. Isabelle yawned. Simon smiled idly.

"Well, there are all these stories about… well, about the treasure. The captain of the ship that came over, Captain Raziel, he brought a load of his family treasure with him. A cup encrusted with jewels, some priceless mirror, and the sword of his family that had been passed down for hundreds of years."

"Jace, if there was treasure in Alicante it would be kept in that shitty museum on Lincoln. We would never hear the end of it." Isabelle huffed, and Jace leant forward.

"Well, that's just it. This is New England; those Spanish sailors weren't here long before the English arrived. And the legend goes that Captain Raziel hid his treasure, somewhere the British would never find it, leaving a series of clues for his closest friends before leaving for the Caribbean."

Clary thought the whole story over.

"That doesn't make a whole lot of sense." Clary said. "Why would he leave behind his treasure? And why clues, why not just give it to his friend?"

"And what kind of a name is Raziel?" Interjected Simon. Isabelle clenched her fist.

"It's Spanish, moron, why is that the most unbelievable part of the story for you?" Isabelle asked him, and before the pair could begin their bickering again, Jace continued his story.

"I mean… there are a load of versions of the story. Some of them say that Raziel was betrayed by his crew, that's why he had to hide the treasure. Some said he left the clues for his children for when they eventually came back. Some people say that the story is just mistranslated. But the gist of the story is pretty mush the same; treasure, clues, five-hundred-year-old mystery."

Isabelle smiled slightly at the idea, as did Clary.

"This is so awesome!" Clary exclaimed, and they all looked to her. "Oh, come on, treasure! Since when has Alicante been this cool? We should totally make our paper about the Raziel Treasure!"

The group collectively rolled their eyes at Clary's enthusiasm. Clary had a tendency to suspend disbelief often, letting herself become obsessed with the littlest things, allowing herself also to be led on by people she trusted.

"I was kidding, little red." Jace said, looking around the room that clearly hadn't been touched by time. "I mean, Isabelle is probably right. The legend used to be a lot more popular that note is just some recreation for a replica, or a game."

Clary frowned.

"You _just _told us all a story about colonial treasure, and now you're backing out?" She whined, and Jace felt a tug in his chest. Clary noticed a flash on his features. "You believe it, I can tell!"

"I mean… Okay, maybe I believe it a little. That box seems pretty legit. But at the end of the day, how would our parents have even got that box, and why would we never have heard about it. Even with…. The deaths… I'm pretty sure they would have wanted to talk about treasure to their own kids."

"I dunno, they never mentioned the fact they were all friends. Maybe the past was just the past, maybe that Hodge guy was the one who knew all the clues." Clary offered.

Simon opened his mouth to reply when they were all suddenly startled by the door slamming open yet again and standing directly in front of them, watching them be somewhere they shouldn't, stood their Principle, Mr Blackthorne. Jace groaned, and the middle-aged man raised an eyebrow.

"Oh dear." Clary whispered.

…..

It turned out that, ultimately, Simon, Jace, and Isabelle had very little choice to be involved with Clary's newspaper idea, because, as a punishment for their collective skiving, they had all been sentenced to after school detention, an agreement that it wouldn't be put on their permanent record as long as they cleared out the old Gazette room until it was entirely usable. Clary had seemed less than upset by this.

This is how they all ended up back in that dusty room, now in the darkening January evening, Clary and Isabelle no longer freezing in their gym gear, and all of them wishing that they weren't having to go through years-worth of old junk. Jace had perched himself by the microfiche reader, going through records from twenty years ago instead of helping Clary and Simon who were hauling boxes worth of useless notes and trash out to the dumpster, having also pulled of the old set of blinds. Isabelle, although not eager to be involved, had taken it upon herself to sort all of the important stuff into neat files, her inner perfectionist meaning that they were gradually building up a pile of old newspapers, for reference, a pile of local sources, and a pile of completely useless but entirely sentimental memorabilia.

And then there was the box.

"You wanna help, princess?" Clary asked huffily to Jace, juggling two full boxes of broken folders, precariously balancing one on her hip. Jace barely glanced up from his reading and blinked.

"I'm good."

Clary huffed again and turned to march down the corridor into the cold night, throwing another box into the dumpster. It was freezing, and Clary rubbed at her arms as she looked out into the night. Alicante sat on the coast, and seemed perpetually grey; tonight, a low fog hung in the air, the bitter taste of a sea breeze flooding all around her. Her family lived by the old Lighthouse on the cape, Simon also living near to her in the older neighbourhood, but Isabelle and Jace lived in the new D, in a huge colonial style house that backed directly onto the pebbled beach. In the summer they spent hours in the water, but during the winter, everything was permeated with a bitter frost.

Clary turned to head back inside, ready to chew Jace out some more, when she heard a noise, a rustle. She stopped in her tracks.

"Simon?" She called, peering into the darkness. No reply. "Hello…"

She heard a rustle again, closer this time, and she knew it wasn't Simon. A wave of fear swept over her, and instead of staying to investigate she bolted toward the door as quickly as she could, slamming the fire door shut and backing away from it. The fluorescence of the lights made it difficult to see out, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched.

She turned around and ran, sliding her way back into the newspaper room. Isabelle, Jace, and Simon all looked up as she entered, breathing heavily, and Isabelle furrowed her brows.

"You okay, Cee?" She asked, putting down the papers she had been filing. Clary leant against the doorframe, breathing deeply, and held up a hand, gesturing that she was fine and to give her a minute. But before she could say anything else, a sharp crack sounded through the room, followed by thump as something hard landed on the desk nearest the window. Isabelle ducked, and Jace stood up, all of them gazing directly at the jagged hole now in the window, cold wind whistling through it. Jace gripped Clary's elbow, and Clary shuffled toward him, not realising he had made his way over to her.

The four of them stood around the desk, staring out into the empty blackness. Clary then looked to the thing that had smashed the window. It was a small, jagged rock, seemingly from the beach, and wrapped around it was a piece of paper. Isabelle picked up the rock and took off the note, handing it to Clary, then made a noise and twisted the rock; it cracked open like an egg, and they all quickly realised it was a fake stone, the kind you kept by your front door to hide keys. She sucked in a breath as the rock came apart, and a key fell into her hand.

She let the rock fall back onto the table as Clary unravelled the note. It was on a plain piece of paper, typed out in the kind of font that made you think of typewriters and teen fiction. Clary, as Isabelle had done that morning, read aloud.

"_Follow the clues_." She said, and they all looked up. "What the hell… How did they know?" She whispered, looking at Jace. He had a curious look on his face, and he took the note.

"Look at this." He said, pointing to a small marking that had been drawn at the bottom of the note. It was like a diamond, with two wings. And Clary recognised it.

"Hey- there was a mark like that on the note from the box!" She said, Jace nodded.

"Yeah," Isabelle commented, moving to pick up one of the files that she had been arranging. Under it was the photo of their parents. She passed it to Clary, pointing out the inscription. "And its on the photo, of the Circle. And this key." She held up the key, and sure enough the label attached to it held the same diamond-like symbol.

Simon frowned, leaning over and looking too.

"What does this mean?" He asked. And yet again, as though they were repeating the mystery of that morning, Jace spoke up.

"It means." He began, taking all three items and placing them together, photo, key, note. "That someone knows what we found. Someone knows about the box." They shared a collective intake of breath.

"It means that someone wants us to finish a wild goose chase our parents started twenty years ago," Clary finished, and Jace nodded.

"This can't be real." Isabelle said in disbelief, and Jace gestured to the evidence.

"I'm not being funny, Iz, but look at all this stuff. This is no coincidence. Someone knows something." He replied, and they shared a sustained look filled with both suspense, and somewhere deep, excitement. Simon coughed, interrupting the tension.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm suddenly a whole lot more interested in investigative journalism. And I think it's pretty clear that someone out there wants to help us." Simon said, and slowly a grin spread across his face, an infectious look that soon had them all grinning like idiots.

"Who wants to solve a mystery?"


	2. Chapter 2

Isabelle and Jace sat outside on their deck, Isabelle painting her nails and Jace reading a book, when they both heard a shout; they looked across the beach, the dark of the night lit up by the fire pit before them, and saw two figures walking toward them. Jace put down his book, standing up, but sat back down when he realised who it was.

"Does that girl not have a phone." Jace asked, wrapping his coat tighter around him. Isabelle laughed, looking up as Clary and Simon made their way up their deck from the beach, each of them also wrapped up tightly, and sat down opposite Isabelle and Jace on the plush outdoor seats, the circular couch being warmed by the central fire. Simon shivered.

"Why the hell are you guys out here?" He said, teeth chattering, and Isabelle grinned.

"Alec has a date, so we thought we'd give him some privacy," Isabelle said, putting the cap on her bottle and waving her fingers. "Besides, the fire's nice!"

Simon narrowed his eyes, blowing on his hands, and Clary rolled her eyes.

"Shut up Si, we aren't here to complain." She said, pulling some paper from her bag. Jace shuffled closer to Clary, looking at her haul.

"Why _are_ you here then?" Jace asked, and Clary grinned.

"I think I might have worked it out." She said, and the others stared blankly. "The clue! I worked out the clue!" She cried, and they all collectively sighed. It had been a week since they found that box, the strange clue, and a week since they had received an enigmatic clue via stone-phone, and for the most part they weren't entirely invested- although Clary clearly was. Mostly her friends had just been putting up with her obsession as they helped her finish the newspaper room, now half heartedly polishing the desks and sweeping the floor. It had been a whole week of detentions. However, even though it had been boring work, the room actually looked pretty cool, and they had collectively decided that it was the perfect place for them to hang out. They hadn't collectively decided that they were invested in Clary's mystery.

"Go on then." Simon said, mostly sceptical and still shivering. Clary grinned as she reread the clue.

"You must dig where no man may enter. May luck find you swiftly." She said, and everyone kept waiting. "Well, its obvious isn't it!" She exclaimed. Isabelle frowned.

"Absolutely nothing about this is obvious, Clary." She said, and Clary grinned, at her friend, her hair shining like the fire before her.

"No Man's Island!" Clary said. "The clue is 'no man may enter', 'no man'. Get it?"

"That's a tenable link." Simon muttered, and Clary bit her lip.

"No, because I had a look at those old records Jace is always on about—" She was interrupted by Jace's indignant noise but kept going. "And it turns out that the old shack on the island was built on top of an old boathouse- a boat house called Lady Luck. So… 'no man' and 'luck may find you'… "

Jace blinked.

"Actually… that kind of makes sense." He said, scratching his head. Clary beamed at him, passing the photocopy of the old map to Jace. Isabelle rolled her eyes.

"Uh, you're forgetting one thing- No Man's Island is out of use. It's called No Man's Island for a reason, hun. No one will take you there anymore, it's too creepy and out of the way for a tiny island with no attractions but a load of wrecked sheds." Isabelle said, and Clary sighed, exasperated.

"Yeah, I know no one will take us- I thought we'd just go alone!" She said cheerfully. Simon choked.

"You want us to sail out there in the middle of winter? What if something happens?" He said, and Clary narrowed her eyes.

"It's not Riker's, Simon, it's only like a mile out. And Isabelle said it, no one wants to go there so we won't be bothered. Nothing could go wrong."

"That's a cursed statement if I ever heard one." Isabelle said, shaking her head. "And how, pray tell, are we going to get there?" She asked her friend. Clary grinned sheepishly.

"I was thinking your Dad's boat?" She said, and Isabelle put a hand to her temple.

"So you want me to take us." She said, and Clary nodded.

"Well… yeah. You or Jace- I could always go in my Dad's old one, but that's legit just a dingy. Yours is all high tech and warm." Clary said, and Jace laughed.

"The last time we went out in that we nearly crashed into the lighthouse." He said, and Clary rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, that's only because we had all had one too many wine coolers at Sebastian's birthday." Clary said, and Simon nodded, still shivering.

"You know I'm along for whatever ride we go on." Simon said, and Isabelle bit her lip.

"I mean… we need to be careful," Isabelle said, but the look on Clary's face made her grin. "But I mean… why not. I've got nothing else to do this weekend." She finished, and Clary clapped her hands.

"Perfect!" She said, and Jace continued to read over the paper that Clary had given him. "We can go tomorrow."

And that is how the four of them ended up on Isabelle's father's boat, Jace in charge of sailing whilst Isabelle navigated. It was the kind of 'high tech', as Clary had described it, that meant they had a satellite radio and GPS connection, as well as a homing signal.

"It basically steers itself then." Clary shouted over the wind as Jace explained this to her from his position at the helm; Isabelle was showing Simon something with the sails, and they were all completely wrapped up in the warmest clothes they owned, life vests strapped to them. Isabelle's mother had offered to sail them there- considering she was already cheerfully pouring herself another scotch as she had offered, they had politely declined. And they didn't particularly want Maryse, one of the original members of the Circle, figuring out what they were doing.

Jace grinned, his golden hair tucked under a beanie, a stripy scarf that didn't belong to him tucked into his vest.

"Yeah, basically."

He fiddled with some rope that Clary didn't understand, then came to sit next to her, their legs crammed next to each other on the small box seat. They were halfway to the island and Clary could feel excitement buzzing in her; she was right about this. She knew it.

"Have you figured out the key too?" Jace asked her, leaning close into her so that she could hear. Clary shrugged, bringing out her phone and looking at the photos that she had taken of the box, the original note, and the key. It had a label on it, but it was only a plastic clip with the strange symbol on it. The key itself had no tell-tale sign of where it belonged. Who it belonged to. Who had given it to them…

"No idea… yet." She said with a small smile. "I'm still trying to work out what this symbol is."

Clary tucked her phone back into her pocket just as a gust of wind blew past them, sending the boat with its force and throwing Clary and Jace together. He gripped her tightly, an arm protectively around her, and his other hand held the railing.

"That wasn't fun." Clary murmured, looking up to Jace. She hadn't realised quite how close they were; but he was watching Isabelle and Simon. She sighed, pulling back, and Jace finally looked to her. He was still gripping her, the cold, salty air whipping around them. Jace swallowed.

"Hey! Look!"

They pulled apart at Simon's shout, and they both looked over their shoulder to see what Simon was pointing to; the island.

Shrouded in mist, the cool splash of the sea like rain around them. And all of a sudden Clary felt that maybe this wasn't such a great idea. Jace noticed her expression and grinned.

"What, afraid?" He asked, standing up and checking the GPS. Clary gripped her elbows.

"Never. How long til we get there?" She asked, and Jace looked up.

"We're here now."

She felt the whole boat jolt as Jace did something to the engine, and Clary stood up, peering through the mist; Isabelle and Jace were shouting to each other now, safely pulling them up alongside a huge rocky part of the island that stuck out like a reaching hand, then moored them at a jetty that Clary hadn't even noticed. Even though they had stopped moving, nothing was still.

"This place… it's so…" Isabelle started, looking out. Simon finished for her, stepping off of the boat that Jace had aptly secured, onto the rickety piece of wood that connected them to the island.

"Dead."

"I mean… it's not exactly a tourist hotspot… but it isn't that bad." Jace said, running a hand through his hair, shaking out his hat and putting it back on. He unclipped his vest and helped Clary with hers, and then they were all off the boat, Clary with a map in her hand, Simon carrying a bag filled with tools that Clary had stolen from her father, and Isabelle and Jace shining torches as they went. It was a relatively bright day, but there was a mist that covered everything in a grey shadow, casting doubt over everything.

They made their way up a small cliff, and then they were finally at the settlement; No Man's Island was tiny. You could almost see from one end to the other, of it weren't for the mist, and in the very centre of it were a collection of ruins. There was a circular set of bricks on the north of the island, most likely once a house, or maybe a lighthouse. There were a few small, stone buildings still standing. And as they made their way across, they could make out a stone pathway that led them down toward the old boathouse.

Most of ruins were covered in some form of graffiti, whispers of a forgotten past, from teenagers like themselves using the island to be alone, pretend they were venturing away from their families when really they were a stone's throw from Alicante. Clary took everything in as they made their way down toward the sea again.

"Spooky, right?" Isabelle said, swinging her torch toward Clary. Clary shrugged.

"It's not so bad… it's kind of cool…" She trailed off, looking to Jace.

"What?" Jace said, and Clary bit her lip.

"Do you think…" She looked around, trying not to trip on the rocks and the debris before her. Jace raised an eyebrow. "Do you think our parents were here? That they worked out the clue…" She said and watched as Jace rubbed at his temple. He was thinking carefully, trying to say the right thing

"Who knows." He said. "I mean… let's hope not."

Clary looked surprised.

"Why not?" She asked, and Jace grinned carefully.

"I mean… _if _you're right about this clue… we don't want to have come all the way out here for nothing." He said, and Clary widened her eyes.

"Crap! I hadn't even thought of that." She said, and huffed. "What if they already found what was here!" She exclaimed, and Jace laughed, Isabelle and Simon catching up to them.

"What if…" Simon said, doing his usual shiver. "There's nothing here, and we trekked out to this god forsaken island on the order of a _stone _for no reason other than to freeze our balls off."

Isabelle spluttered and Clary laughed, giving Simon a shove.

"No… there's something here… I can feel it." She said, ignoring Isabelle's eye roll.

"You and your feelings." Isabelle laughed, linking their arms as they made their way down the slope. "Always getting us in trouble."

Through the mist the old boathouse came into view; another jetty, half of the pier broken off into the sea, ran alongside the house. The roof of the place looked newer, as though someone had tried to keep it in good shape, and the outside bricks were encrusted in years worth of silt and salt. The sea was relatively calm now, a gentle sound of lapping filling the air. Clary hiked up her backpack, Isabelle pulling her coat tighter.

"It's not actually that bad." She said as they made their way toward it. Clary folded up her map, nodding.

"Yeah… it doesn't look that old." She said, inspecting the small building. Jace took off his backpack and stretched in the wind, inhaling a deep breath as he took in both the view, and the small shack.

"Right," He said, pulling the backpack back on and clapping his hands. "Let's go."

Entering the small building was easier than they had thought; no one owned it anymore, and all Clary had to do was push the door firmly, feeling the decaying wood give way at her will. She stepped inside, and immediately was met with a sense of familiarity, as though she had been there before. She shivered.

"Where's this treasure then?" Simon said, placing his bag on the ground as the door swung shut again, trapping them all in darkness. Clary bit her lip, pulling out her map again. The shack was no longer a boathouse; it was simply one large room, wooden floors decaying in the salty water that had spent decades lapping against it.

"Well… the boathouse was directly under this place." She said as she looked around. "But… I guess that was a long time ago… maybe we should just pick a space and start digging." Clary said, and Isabelle swung her flashlight around the room. There were broken pieced of wood, bits of trash from years of wanderers, and a stagnant smell in the air. Nothing special. Nothing mysterious.

"Pick a place… Clary, what are we even looking for?"

Clary tried not to get frustrated; there seemed to be nothing there. Nothing but an empty shack on an abandoned island. She felt a wave of disappointment sweep over her.

"I—"

"Hey, look!" Simon cut off Clary's defeat and gained their attention; he had been crouched against the wall in the corner but was now pointing to the ground, his eyes fixed on something.

"What now, Si?" Isabelle said, allowing her flashlight to flow over him, bathing him in a sickly glow. His long legs were stretched under him, and he was swiping at the dirt of the floor with his gloved hand. Isabelle wrinkled her nose. "Ew… that is _so _gross." She said, but Clary moved closer, Jace too. Clary gasped.

"No way!" She said, crouching down with him. In the very corner of the floorboard, scratched in black and carved into the wood, was the same diamond shaped marking as on the letter, on the key. It was only small, barely noticeable in the dust. But there. She carefully inspected the corner they were in, tracing the floor with her fingertip. Then she felt a dip in the wood. Small enough to go unnoticed when looking, but too large and purposeful to be just a notch.

"Pass me a screwdriver." She said to Simon, gesturing to the bag he had been carrying; he watched her with curiosity as she took the tool and jammed it into the notch. She did this twice, scratching at the gap. And then, with a final shove, she managed to lodge the screwdriver within the wooden slat. She then pushed, and with a stretched squeak, a square piece of the floorboard swung open. Clary grinned triumphantly and peered into the hole in the ground; beneath the shack, in what was left of the boathouse, was a large circle of stone, carved on top was the diamond symbol.

"Oh my god." Isabelle said, stepping closer as Jace and Simon moved the piece of wood that had once been the floorboards, letting the light flow onto the stone in the ground. "Is that…"

"A man hole." Clary said, tracing the symbol. She glanced up to Isabelle. "Still think this is a prank?" She asked her friend, and she felt Jace kneel down next to her.

"It's a pretty damn elaborate one, if it is." He said, and too began to run his fingers along the stone. It seemed to be built into the island beneath them, a circle cut from the ground under the shack. But there was no way to open it.

"We need a way of getting it up." Clary said, standing and rifling through her bag. She hadn't thought she would need the kind of machinery used to dig up a stone manhole. She was clearly mistaken. Instead she pulled out the collapsed shovels and handed one to Jace who opened it up, one to Simon, and took one herself. She told Isabelle to keep shining the light.

"I mean, at least we have shovels." Isabelle said as Clary dropped back to her knees, screwdriver in hand. She ran the metal object around the circle, digging at the years of silt and mud that had lodged itself in the architecture, scooping it out of the way and revealing the outer lip of the seal. She then stood up, brushing off her knees, and picked up her shovel.

"Okay." She said, suddenly acutely aware of the visible breath from her mouth. She gripped the shovel, digging its heavy metal point into the lip of the seal. "If we all do this, and all push into it, maybe we'll be able to pull the seal away…" She said, and Simon and Jace mimicked her position, a slightly sceptical look on their faces. "Three, two—" On one the three of them dug their shovels in tightly, feeling little give. They tried three more times, each time Simon claiming he felt a movement. Clary huffed at their last attempt, feeling the same sense of mounting disappointment bubble within her. Then she felt a shift in the darkness as Isabelle put down the flashlight and clicked open her own shovel, shoving it angrily into the groove in the stone. Clary blinked, and Isabelle rolled her eyes at her friend.

"You dragged me all the way out here, on a Saturday, when we could have been warm in Java Jones' sipping pumpkin spice lattes and listening to Eric's slam poetry. Instead I'm freezing my tits off in the middle of nowhere. We are _going _to get this thing open."

Clary tilted her head, grinning, and Simon grinned too.

"Okay… one more time." She said, looking to her friends. "Three… two… one—"

They all heaved at once, using their shovels as levers to pull up the seal.

And they did it. Feeling a slight tug, Clary let out an exclamation as the heavy circular piece of stone finally shifted, being pushed up by the four shovels and popping up from its place. They all simultaneously sighed, and Clary dropped her shovel, moving to pull the stone circle away from the hole it covered. It was heavy, but only just over an inch thick, and she shifted it to the side to see what it was covering.

The hole revealed a ladder, and as Isabelle shone her light down the tunnel, Clary realised what lay beneath.

"It's… it's a room!" Simon said, and Isabelle grinned.

"Now that is kind of cool…" She said, looking to Jace and Clary. "Who's going first?"

They descended the ladder, one after the other, Simon the last to go down. Clary had been the first, holding onto Jace's hand as she lowered herself into the hole. The ladder was attached by a bolt to the hole and was also attached by bolts to the ground, leaning at a comfortable slant. This didn't stop it shaking as they descended.

Clary and Isabelle looked around the small room as Jace helped Simon down, and Clary finally felt excitement, success, hope.

The room, or practically a cave, was clearly old, with its salt encrusted stone walls, and the lack of oxygen from their depth. The ladder was in the very centre of the room, and across all the walls were strange markings, among them the winged diamond that they kept seeing.

The room was also entirely empty.

"Well." Simon said, brushing off his hands as he too in the cave. "That's anticlimactic."

Clary pulled off her hat, looking carefully at the room. She knew that they were in the right place; they had to be.

"Read that clue again." Jace said, and Clary pulled out her phone, reading from her photo.

'Time wears thin.

My fortune will remain as I will, buried, if you cannot finish my task.

To find my key, you must dig where no man may enter. Luck may find you swiftly.

Alicante is ours no more.'

She read aloud, then looked over to Jace who had been inspecting the walls. He shone a torch carefully at the markings across the cave, then ran his finger along it.

"There's names all along here." He said, reading. "I think they're names… they're all so weird." He said, and Clary walked over to where he stood, examining the writing.

"I don't read Spanish…" Clary murmured, wishing for a minute that she did, staring at the small lines of text, the etched markings in the wall. But she recognised the name Raziel.

"They're just poems," Jace said, running his fingers along the writing, and Clary looked up to him.

"You can read it?" She asked, and Jace frowned.

"I—yeah, I guess. I…" He shook his head, then looked back at the text. "My Dad and I, we used to read these fairy tales… I remember…" He shook his head again, then looked down at Clary. "Doesn't matter- the writing is just stories, about the sea, mermaids and treasure." He said, grinning, and Clary felt her heart ache for him, just slightly, and looked back to the wall. "This word though." He said, running his finger over the etching. "It just says 'luck'. And here…" He ran his finger along the wall, following the writing. Clary stood back, shining a light on him, letting him follow the words all the way to the other side of the room. And then he stopped, inspecting the wall carefully.

"Aha." He said, and they all watched as he pulled at something, something hidden in the wall behind years of secrets. Clary rushed to his side; in his hand he now held a small piece of the wall, a chunk that he had pulled out, and nestled inside it, like a secret drawer, was a small glass bottle. Jace pulled the bottle from its case and slipped the rock back into the wall- Clary seeing that yet again it beheld the winged diamond mark.

"What is it?" Simon asked, and Jace held up the bottle. It was small, smaller than the palm of his hand, stoppered with wax. And inside was a piece of paper. Simon let out a low whistle as Jace began to pick at the wax, peeling it away clumsily. Simon rolled his eyes, digging around in his pocket and reaching for the bottle. "Give it here." He said, pulling out a lighter as Jace gave him the bottle. He carefully flicked the flame on, waving the heat gently under the bottle to loosen the wax. He then popped the wax seal from the bottle and moved to hand it back to Jace. He shook his head, grinning.

"Nah, you do the honours, bro." Jace replied, looking at Clary who was laughing, eyes dancing with excitement.

"Stoner saves the day." Isabelle said, leaning over Simon's shoulder. "Now open the damn thing."

Simon tipped the bottle shakily, letting the small tube of paper fall out into his waiting palm, and he opened it carefully, as though it were made of autumn leaves and could fall apart at the slightest touch.

"It… it's in Spanish… I think…" Simon said, passing it to Jace. Jace furrowed his brows.

"No… this is Latin." He said. Clary watched him expectantly, and he rolled his eyes. "Well, I don't speak Latin, do I? No one does… anyone got internet?" He asked, and Isabelle pulled out her phone.

"Look who's useful now." She said, grinning with her tongue between her teeth, tapping at her phone.

"How the hell do you have reception at the bottom of a ten-foot pit, on an island that hadn't been lived on in centuries?" Simon asked, scratching his head, and Isabelle just held up a finger.

"I'm a spoiled brat, remember? There's nothing I don't have."

Clary tried not to laugh at Simon's incredulous look and waited for Isabelle to finish.

"Okay." The raven-haired girl said, glancing between her phone and the paper. "This might not be perfect, but it says- roughly—

'My mirror remains where I left it, at the peak of our home.

Its hive is the guiding light, find it, and my treasure resides below.

I hope our light lives on.

R.A.'

Isabelle read from her phone, rolling back up the note and handing it to Clary, who put it safely in her backpack. The group looked at one another.

"It's just another clue." Simon said. "I thought… I thought this was what we were looking for." He said, and Clary smiled lightly.

"You're the one that was excited about a treasure hunt." She laughed, and Simon narrowed his eyes.

"Yeah, but I'm also too lazy to trek all the way to another island." He said, and Clary laughed.

"Well, I'm guessing its not an island- _our home, _that's Alicante, right?" She said, and Jace nodded.

"Okay, cool, whatever, can we please work this out later? I'm so cold I think I'm losing fingers." Isabelle said, interrupting them, and Clary nodded as she picked up her backpack.

"Okay, I don't think there's anything else here…"

She trailed off as Jace shot her a sharp look, raising a finger to his lips. He was looking up at the ladder, the hole to the surface.

Something thumped. Like footsteps.

"Move." Jace hissed, herding them away from the ladder.

"The room's a damn circle." Isabelle replied, glancing up at the manhole. Jace shushed her, switching off his flashlight and looking up.

Another thud.

"There's someone up there." Simon said, and Clary felt her blood run cold; but before she knew what was happening, they were all plunged into infinite darkness as the heavy seal was shifted back into place above them, and the thudding of footsteps retreated. Clary tried not to panic, feeling out for Isabelle's fingers in the dark, gripping her hand as she felt Simon place a hand on her shoulder. They couldn't see, but were connected. She took a deep breath.

Jace was the first to speak.

"I think they're gone." Jace barely whispered into the dark. Simon squeezed Clary's shoulder, and then flashed his light back on, illuminating the unsettled faces of his friends with a dim yellow glow. Jace looked at him.

"Who was that?" Isabelle asked, looking to Clary. "Who did you tell we were coming here?"

Clary shook her head in earnest.

"I didn't tell anyone! I didn't want anyone to know…" She trailed off as Simon began to climb the ladder, pushing at the seal.

"Guys…" He heaved, pushing hard against the roof of the cave. "It's stuck. Like, real stuck."

He climbed back down at Jace's gesture and let the shorter boy climb up and attempt to push also. He grunted, and Clary shone the light up to him.

"Anything?" She asked, trying not to panic. Jace just looked upwards, still pushing.

"It just needs… a bit more…" He grunted, and Clary nodded. She wedged her flashlight into her armpit and began to climb the opposite side of the ladder; unlike Jace's side, which was leaning forward, she was leaning backward and could feel the deep gravity trying to pull her back to the ground.

"Make sure I don't fall." She said carefully to Jace, sticking her feet in the rungs by Jace's calves and feeling him press against her. They were eye to eye, the bright light shining into their face. She glanced up, as did he, and they both gulped. On the underside of the stone, like echoes from the past, were a number of scratches, like claw marks. They weren't deep, but they were etched in clear as day.

"We need to leave." Clary said, and Jace nodded. Putting the torch down her coat and gripping the ladder tightly with her legs, both she and Jace reached up to push the seal. It was wedged in tightly, but Clary could feel it begin to give.

"C'mon." Jace said, teeth gritted and jaw clench. Below them Isabelle was panicking, breathing rapidly and being consoled by Simon. Jace let out shout and stopped pushing. As did Clary. "Okay, put your hands like this-" He directed her hands, making it so that they were spread across the whole of the seal, one of their hands at each of the edges of the stone circle. Clary nodded. "And when I say push, push, okay? Don't listen to Iz, we just need to get out." He said firmly, and Clary nodded.

"Okay… ready?" Jace said as Clary clenched her legs tighter on the ladder, ready to push against the rung and spring up against the roof. Then she nodded. "Push!"

They both simultaneously pushed with all the force they had, Clary practically jumping at the action; their plan worked, and immediately they felt the stone give way, slipping out of place with a grinding screech, and dull light streamed back into the cavern. Clary heard Isabelle swear, but also felt herself slip as her feet gave way, her arms useless to catch her. She felt a tight arm snake around her waist and pull her back against the ladder with a thud. She gasped.

"Thanks." She grinned nervously, glancing through the rungs to Jace, who was watching her carefully.

"Clumsy as ever, Fairchild." He said, and Clary held herself tightly to the ladder, looking down to their friends.

"You can let go of me now." She whispered, and Jace swallowed. He gripped the torch that was in Clary's coat and pulled it free, then proceeding to make his way up the ladder. Clary rolled her eyes, shouting to Simon to grab her bag before she too swung herself around to the correct side of the ladder followed Jace back up into the boathouse. He was standing in the middle of it, holding something in his hand. Clary brushed off the dust on her jeans and zipped her coat up tighter, wondering how the surface could be colder than the cave. The she walked to Jace.

"What is it?" She asked, pulling her hat back onto her head and rubbing her fingers. Jace passed her a piece of paper that he held in his hands. She read it, recognising the writing.

"Stone phone?" She said, referencing the note attached to the stone that had flown into the Gazette room. Jace nodded solemnly.

"Read it." He said. Clary glanced down as Simona and Isabelle made their way to the pair. Clary read aloud.

"_They keep them in the basement."_ She read, then looked to her friends. "What does that mean?" She asked, confused. Simon was first to speak, pulling on his backpack and frowning.

"Right now, I don't care. All I want is a hot cup of coffee and some dry socks." He said huffily, and Isabelle laughed, patting his back.

"Okay, Grandpa, cool it. I say we head back to mine and then we can work out whatever the hell this means." Isabelle said, and Clary nodded. The group made their way out, shutting the door to the abandoned place once more and making the hike back to the boat. Clary noticed Jace's slow pace and slowed to catch him.

"What's up?" She asked as they made their way back up the stony path they had descended earlier, the smell of the sea and salt hitting her nostrils. Jace frowned as he caught her eye.

"I've just realised something." He said, and Clary watched him carefully. She gestured for him to go on. "Well, the person leaving the notes. They're trying to help us, right?"

Clary nodded.

"Except, there was only one set of footsteps after us. That means that whoever left the note is the person who tried to trap us down there."

She faltered in her step; she hadn't even thought of that.

"And I can't help but think that maybe, they were trying to warn us. Warn us that if we don't find what they want us to…" Clary sucked in a breath, stopping cold in her tracks. Jace looked back to her. "If we don't find it, we're going to end up like whoever was trapped in that cave. Like Hodge Starkweather."

He carried on walking, catching up to Isabelle, and Clary watched him go as she caught her breath. Because she couldn't help but feel that, maybe, Jace was right.


End file.
